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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good Monday morning, everyone. Mayor Eric Adams will be on with us today in about an hour, right around 11 o'clock. Among other things, we'll talk about the police transparency bill. Of course, it's been so much in the news, the How Many Stops Act. We had Speaker Adrian Adams from the City Council on this on Friday. He vetoed it as too much paperwork that the mayor says would take time from keeping people safe. City Council may override that veto tomorrow.

I think one of the reasons he's making media rounds right now is to try to put pressure on them to not do that. That conversation now includes the police stop on Friday that many of you have heard about of Harlem City Council Member Yusef Salaam, well known as one of the exonerated Central Park Five. The mayor and city council seem to see that stop and its relationship to the transparency bill very differently.

We will play a 15-second audio of the encounter itself that's been made public and discuss that among other things with Mayor Eric Adams right around 11 o'clock. Also today, Dr. Uché Blackstock, many of you know she was a guest on the show multiple times during the beginning of and the height of the pandemic to talk about the disparate impact of COVID and what to do about it. Now, Dr. Blackstock has a book which is about fighting racism in medicine as well as her personal story. I didn't realize until now that Dr. Blackstock and her mother became the first Black mother-daughter pair to attend Harvard Medical School. Should be really interesting with Dr. Uché Blackstock today.

We start here. We start the week in South Carolina, where the Haley versus Trump Republican primary battle just got real, now that Haley is actually going after Trump more aggressively than before. We'll hear a clip or two, but wait, that election day isn't until February 24th. This Saturday, South Carolina will be the Democrat's first in the nation primary with President Biden hoping to rack up a big win against almost no competition to show he's still got turnout power, but wait, again, Biden has a primary. Did you even know that?

Can you even name one person running against him? We can, and we will. We will play a clip of the one main person. With us now on both the South Carolina contests is Associated Press national politics reporter, Meg Kinnard, who lives in and is based in South Carolina. Her main scene-setter article over the weekend was headlined Biden Returns to South Carolina to Show His Determination to Win Back Black Voters in 2024.

Now, the majority of the Democratic primary electorate in South Carolina is Black voters. Here's an example of how Biden is campaigning to them. This is from a Biden campaign event in the state on Saturday night. He has just cited the $300-a-month checks program that the government had for families with children during the height of the pandemic.

President Biden: Here's what it did. It helped cut Black poverty in half for Black children in America because no child in America should ever go hunger, ever. When Trump pushed Black small businesses to the back of the line and the pandemic funding, I moved it to the front of the line. Today, Black small businesses are starting up at the fastest rate in 30 years.

Brian Lehrer: President Biden at a Democratic Party dinner Saturday night. The AP's Meg Kinnard is with us now. Meg, I realize this is your very busy season. Thanks for giving us some time today. Welcome to WNYC.

Meg Kinnard: Absolutely. Brian, it's good to be with you. Thanks so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Your article's angle that the president is determined to win back Black voters who are less enthused than they were in 2020, how are some ways that you're seeing that loss of enthusiasm in South Carolina and over what issues?

Meg Kinnard: Frankly, it's really from the conversations that I have since that is where I live and where I've been doing this job for the AP for almost 20 years now. When I have these conversations with people, some of whom I've known for a long time, they're just at a loss. Some of them, let's be honest, this is anecdotal in large part, but there are some folks who are looking back to the 2020 primary where South Carolina came through for Joe Biden and resuscitated his campaign after Iowa and New Hampshire where he had not performed very well, and he got a big win.

He has mentioned that. He mentioned it on Saturday night and expressed thanks to the state's Democratic voters. In some ways, what folks are telling me, we don't really see him, he's not been here. Part of that is because he's president, and so we don't see the president going to a lot of these campaign places as much as he did when he was a private citizen running in 2020. There's just not really a sense from what some people are telling me reflected in progress in different areas that the president talks about that he's been working on. Some people just don't feel like it's fast enough. He was trying to hit on some of those points on Saturday night in terms of insulin cap prices and student loan forgiveness.

Brian Lehrer: These are things he did do.

Meg Kinnard: Right. He campaigned hard on them. This was a big list of reminders he was ticking off to say to those people, "You don't think that I've performed? Here are some specific things that I have done for you. Just as a reminder, please support me. Please give me a big win here this year."

Brian Lehrer: Do you see any enthusiasm for Trump? I mean, one or two polls, yes, but they're outliers so far. We should definitely see a small but growing number of Black voters considering Trump over Biden, mostly for economic reasons. You were just giving me an example of how Biden is trying to counteract that kind of perception. This is of course assuming that they are both the nominees, but despite their feelings about Trump and racism. I realize it's anecdotal. You're not conducting surveys, but actually the AP is conducting some polls. Do you see it in South Carolina?

Meg Kinnard: That crossover support in the Black community for Trump?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Meg Kinnard: I have heard anecdotal evidence of it. I don't think that's something that we can really say at this point is necessarily going to be a huge crossover in South Carolina particularly. I have heard when I'm out in the community and having conversations, and there is a level of frustration. I was in a conversation with a man a couple of months ago who is a Black man who votes in South Carolina, and he specifically pointed out to me he didn't feel like Joe Biden had delivered in the ways that he felt he should have.

There is polling on this. There's questions as to whether this will be enough to really produce much of a visible shift for Donald Trump among Black voters. We have heard from the former president himself, this is a place where he really wants to improve on his numbers from 2016 and 2020. We'll see if that can bear out if he is the nominee, and if he and Joe Biden are doing that November general election face-off.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Yet the former president keeps doing things that are read by many as articulations of racism. Of course, only time will tell how that plays out, even assuming he's the nominee. Another thing about Biden and ambivalence about him, The New York Times had an article over the weekend called Black Pastors Pressure Biden to Call for a Ceasefire in Gaza. I'm going to play an example of one of those pastors who was a guest on NPR's Morning Edition today. This is Bishop Leah Daughtry, who is the presiding prelate of the House of the Lord churches. She's very prominent in the Democratic leadership. She was the CEO of the 2016 and 2008 Democratic National Convention committees. Here she is on NPR's Morning Edition.

Bishop Leah Daughtry: We believe that we have to be on the side of the oppressed as God is. When you see the disparate living circumstances and how they are being disproportionately impacted by this, what, 26,000, mostly women and children, we believe that our responsibility is to speak for them and to identify with them in the circumstances that they find themselves in at this moment. We believe that's where God would be.

Brian Lehrer: I'm curious, Meg, if you're hearing that as a salient issue in South Carolina, or if it's way backseat to domestic concerns like voting rights and the economy for Black voters, which is the angle of that Times article and NPR piece.

Meg Kinnard: I don't hear that as much in South Carolina and in the other states where I travel and report in terms of issues that are at top of mind for people. Number one is almost always the economy and those kitchen table concerns that affect everybody. The issue of the ongoing war, the Israeli-Hamas war, and the protestors that have continued to pop up at pretty much all of President Biden's events, including here in South Carolina. There were several people who interrupted his speech on Saturday night.

Those are circumstances that, okay, people protest, they have voices, they have concerns, they should have a right to express them, but it is something that continues to follow him around. If some of those same frustrations and the issues that you just noted do emerge in a way that seems like they're going to be playing a bigger role in the Democratic primary, that will be a place where President Biden and his team really do have to do some thinking about how to handle not just the protesters, but overall grasp of the issue as it's playing out.

Brian Lehrer: Biden's opponent, or the Democrat seem to be the main opponent, if there is even a main opponent, in South Carolina, is Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips of Minnesota. He also spoke at the dinner on Saturday night. You reported the crowd wasn't paying much attention, and he had to speak over them. In fact, Meg I wanted to play a soundbite of him from the Saturday night speech in this segment but couldn't even find one online. Here's one from primary night in New Hampshire last week after Phillips came in a distant second to Biden, who wasn't even on the ballot.

Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips: This is not a campaign about me, this is a campaign about all of you, and all the people we're about to meet all around this big country that are looking for somebody to get excited about, and to energize us, and bring hope and bring love and bring joy and bring some energy.

[applause]

Brian Lehrer: Do you, as a reporter in South Carolina, realize you're not going around the country following Dean Phillips, but here's his primary now, and Biden wants to rack up a lot of votes against this guy, and he's there, Congressman Phillips. Do you have a sense of him, and why he's primarily in Biden, or how he's making that case in the state?

Meg Kinnard: I have spent time with Congressman Phillips. I sat down with him during one of his previous trips to the state, and I spoke to him again on Saturday. For him, it's a lot of the same kind of argument in a different way that we hear from Nikki Haley and her Republican challenge of Donald Trump. It's an argument for a new generation and an opportunity for someone younger to lead the party.

Dean Phillips prefaces his remarks always in a respectful way about Joe Biden, somebody who has served the country well, in his opinion, but it's time for someone else to have a chance. You're right. There was a lot of talking over Congressman Phillips when he got started. He managed to, with a bit of humor and self-deprecation, get the crowd's attention and give his remarks, and ultimately received some applause and a fairly positive reception, but in that room, that room of several hundred where he was speaking, there was a lot of support for Joe Biden.

He knew that going into it. He brought with him Andrew Yang, who also ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, who campaigned a lot in South Carolina. He was there advocating for Philips, talking to reporters and meeting with people as well. It's a bit of a generational argument. It's tough when you have an incumbent and you're the one challenging them, and you're coming into a state that has supported this particular candidate in massive numbers in the most recent election cycle, but Dean Phillips continues to make his argument, and at least he was able to get the crowd to quiet down so he could be heard by them.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] I guess that's a start, but it's a very modest start. Is age his only issue? I get a sense from reading about Dean Phillips' record in Congress, that he's relatively a moderate. It's not like Biden is getting a progressive challenger from the left, the Bernie Sanders camp, or call it what you will, which would be an interesting ideological conversation at this point with Gaza and other issues, but that's not what Dean Phillips is all about. Correct me if I'm wrong, is it almost all on Biden's age?

Meg Kinnard: In large part, it does seem to be. You're right that ideologically the way they line up on issues is not super different. Dean Phillips also talks about his background and being a working class and working his way up in the world. That's a lot of the same messaging that we hear from Joe Biden as part of his origin story. There isn't a whole lot of daylight. In talking with the Biden campaign, they're quick to point out.

Dean Phillips is voted with Joe Biden 99% of the time on issues in Congress. At least his voting record on the Hill shows that he does very much support the President's policy priorities, but he just is of the mindset that it's time for someone else to take the reins of the party and, he would argue, be in better position to win a general election in November.

Brian Lehrer: What would be considered victory for Biden in South Carolina on Saturday, since there's probably no doubt he will handily beat Dean Phillip? What would be a cause for concern?

Meg Kinnard: His team isn't talking specific numbers, which makes sense, but they are definitely looking for President Biden to have the same thundering win that he did in 2020, granted there were a lot more people in that contest in 2020, and ones who had been campaigning very hard in South Carolina, and that's different this time, plus he's an incumbent. Here they want the kind of big numbers that will not only mark a victory in the leadoff state, but also potentially serve as a signal to Black voters, particularly in those states that follow that Joe Biden is yet again their candidate and advocating for them.

In terms of a general election, if he has marked these big numbers in the first couple of primaries, then that could show that despite all the criticism, despite any concern about his age, or what have you, that he is still the guy who can mark a win against possibly Donald Trump in another general election matchup. They want it to be a big win, a significant win. They are already looking much further down the pipe than South Carolina, albeit this is the place where it all gets started.

Brian Lehrer: My guest, if you're just joining us, is AP national political reporter, Meg Kinnard, based in South Carolina, where both parties have primaries coming up now, the Democrats this Saturday, the Republicans on Saturday, February 24th. We can take a few phone calls. Anyone in South Carolina or with connections to South Carolina want to call up and help us report what's happening there with your own anecdotal evidence in either the Democratic or Republican primary, 212-433-WNYC.

To the angle of Meg's AP story and other news organizations also focusing on this idea of Biden trying to rekindle enthusiasm among Black voters because he will need turnout in the fall. Listeners, are you a Black Biden voter from 2020 who feels any differently today? Do you see either a Republican or staying home as viable options for you this fall assuming Biden is on the ballot, or anyone else? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. We welcome your calls and texts.

We're going to go on to Nikki Haley versus Donald Trump in South Carolina in a minute, Meg, but first you have another article saying Biden pledged in South Carolina to shut down the border right away, I think that's an exact quote, "Shut down the border right away," if the compromise immigration bill the Senate is working on goes through. Is it clear what he means by shut down the border right away and does he need that bill to do that?

Meg Kinnard: He claims he does need that bill to do that. Now that is in opposition to what House Speaker Mike Johnson has said in terms of, "No, you don't need this. US president could actually choose to do this on your own."

In South Carolina, on Saturday, the President was offering these assurances to anyone who is concerned about border security, concerned about fentanyl, concerned about all of the issues along the southern border. He was saying, "Look, if only Congress will do its job and send me a bill that they have been working on that we've been helping in these negotiations with. If they will send it to me, I will sign it, and we can take care of this right now." That was his quote. That got a big reaction from the crowd where he was. I think that was doing two things.

One, for a sitting president to come out and have a very strong position on an issue that a lot of Americans say is one of their top of mind concerns, at least in some way, but also to show a room of his supporters and people who support he definitely wants in the primary in the general election that he is very much capable of the high-level sorts of interactions with Congress and seeing an issue through to its end, kind of a, "If you guys are worried that I'm not up to the job, yes, I absolutely am. I'm working on it with Congress, and this is what I'm willing to do."

It was not necessarily somewhere that I saw that speech going, but it definitely got a lot of reaction from the people who in large part are Biden supporters in that room already.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Sharon in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sharon.

Sharon: Hi. I am energized to get more young people to vote. I'm looking at how a person with so many different charges on many different level is even allowed to be on the ballot. If that he were a person of color, he would not be on the ballot. I am energized. I am talking to a lot of my daughter's sorority sisters, the AKAs, the Deltas, as well as the young people that I know that we must not vote for. We are voting against, as we usually are.

Brian Lehrer: Against Donald Trump, presumably?

Sharon: Yes. When you're a person of color, sometimes you're going through the ballot saying, "Am I voting for someone, or I'm voting against someone?" A lot of times it's a lesser of two evils. Biden has done a whole lot, and I understand, but they do not want Kamala Harris to be president. That's what they're running on. A person of color, a woman cannot be president.

Brian Lehrer: What are you hearing, Sharon, from some of the young Black New Yorkers who you say you're talking to in terms of their enthusiasm level? Are you having to respond to anything that they raise with a shrug?

Sharon: No, because they have student debt. They have student loan debt. They had to start paying back money, and they have no jobs. They have the reality of living with their parents still because they cannot afford to leave. No, I don't have to tell them that much. They're still living in the same bedroom that they were living in when they were six years old. Big deal about that.

Brian Lehrer: Sharon, thank you very much. Pointing to that particular issue, student debt is something that Biden is arguing he did as much as he could on without Congress standing in the way or the court standing in the way. Let's take another caller. Here's Kai in Prospect LeFort Gardens in Brooklyn. Hi, Kai. You're on WNYC.

Kai: Hi, Brian. I was calling in to-- I'm a Black voter. I in, I guess, November changed my party affiliation from Democrats to non-affiliated here in New York City, in large part in response to Joe Biden's support of the genocide happening in Gaza. I'm somebody in response to the previous caller who Joe Biden forgave my student loans, and I still will not be voting for Joe Biden because, at some point in this country, we have to stop choosing between the lesser of two evils and stand with morals. I want it to be on record that I will not be voting in support of a genocide.

Brian Lehrer: Of course, people will argue about the word genocide, but would you be saying the same thing if you were in a swing state, or would you be too worried that Trump is so much worse that you don't have the luxury to sit it out?

Kai: My entire family lives in Ohio, actually Southern Ohio, north of Cincinnati. I'm telling them the same; don't vote Joe Biden. I'm not saying vote for Trump, but I really think is that at the end of the day, if you are a person who believes in God, if you are a person who stands by your moral convictions, you cannot put your name down in support of the apartheid and genocide that's happening. Regardless if you want to play semantics and word games, what's happening there is not right under any definition.

Brian Lehrer: Kai, thank you for chiming in. Here's a voter in South Carolina. Clarissa, you're on WNYC. Hi, Clarissa. Where in South Carolina are you?

Clarissa: Hi, Brian. Good morning. I am in the capital, Columbia. I'm so happy to be speaking with you. I lived in New York for seven years, and I listen to your show every morning. I told the screener that I am a 35-year-old Black woman, and I have every intention for voting for President Biden. Everyone in my family, in my circles, we are all no doubt voting for President Biden. I'm a little disappointed that there's so much pushback against him because I know he is not perfect, but considering the circumstances, I think he's doing a fine job.

Brian Lehrer: Clarissa, thank you very much, and call us again from South Carolina. Meg Kinnard from the Associated Press. Interesting little sampling of calls there. I wonder if you were thinking anything in particular during any of them.

Meg Kinnard: Particularly on that last call. I've heard that, and I heard that on Saturday night, that this is not a perfect circumstance, but ideally any candidate, and certainly Joe Biden, would be better than Donald Trump. That was what some folks have told me along the campaign trail and told me over the weekend. In South Carolina too, there's no independent registration, but there is no registration by party.

When the caller was talking about changing to independent, that notion of will Democratic, or typically folks who vote in the Democratic primary, will they sit out if they don't want to be part of nominating Joe Biden for whatever reason? Will there be people who might opt to vote in the Republican primary? There's just a lot of that movement that I think is on the minds of people as we head into this. We can talk more about it in terms of the Republicans, but that certainly seems reflective of some of the things I've been hearing around South Carolina for sure.

Brian Lehrer: I guess to make the segue to the Republican primary, it's probably bad for Nikki Haley in a state like South Carolina, as you were just describing, where people can vote in either. Bad for Nikki Haley that Joe Biden is trying to run up his score on the Democratic side, even though it's not really a competitive primary. We saw in New Hampshire that if Haley did what could be considered at all well, it was because that state also allows independents to vote in either primary, and there was no Democratic primary really.

In this case, Biden is trying to get a lot of people who support him to turn out for him, and of course, they can't vote in both primaries, so that hurts Nikki Haley. No?

Meg Kinnard: Potentially. I think that these primaries are happening on different days. You're right. If you've chosen to participate in the Democratic one, then you're not an option for the Republican one when it comes around. There has been a lot of conversation about the potential for Democrats who either don't want to participate in their own primary or just know that Joe Biden is going to win it, and so maybe they would rather go and play in the Republican primary. There's been a lot of conversation and a lot of coverage about all of that.

Honestly, from my perspective, I don't see a whole lot of Democrats opting to do that in the ways that some of Nikki Haley's supporters have talked about it potentially helping her in South Carolina in the primary with Donald Trump. Colleen Condon, who is an officer with the State Democratic Party, on Saturday night, stood up and said, "Hi. I had to sue Nikki Haley when she was governor for the right to get married as a gay woman in South Carolina. Please do not try to go and participate in the primary to give your vote for her if you are a typically Democratic voter here." That's obviously anecdotal, but I don't see a whole lot of that happening.

Brian Lehrer: All right. We'll continue in a minute after a break with AP national politics reporter, Meg Kinnard, based in South Carolina. We'll turn more explicitly to the Republican primary there. We'll play Nikki Haley on Meet The Press yesterday to see how she's going after Donald Trump, harder than she was before New Hampshire. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we talk about the South Carolina primaries with AP national politics reporter, Meg Kinnard, who's based in South Carolina. Let's go on to the Republican primary. This is Nikki Haley's home state where she was governor but enters trailing Trump by about 30 points in most polls in the state. Here is Haley taking it to Trump a little harder now on NBC's Meet The Press yesterday.

Nikki Haley: Look, he can't bully his way through the nomination. I think that it's not surprising that he is surrounded by the political elite, but let's keep in mind the political elite has gotten nothing done for us in stopping the wasteful spending, has gotten nothing done to secure the border, has gotten nothing done to keep us more safe as we see wars around the world.

Brian Lehrer: Pretty interesting. Haley painting Trump as the insider and the candidate of the Republican elite. Here's another one from Meet The Press, as Hailey talks to the moderator, Kristen Wilker.

Nikki Haley: Kristen, look at what happened just in the 48 hours after the election. Here, he was totally unhinged, went on a rampage election night, talking about revenge. Then the next day he goes and says, "Anybody who supports me is not going to be allowed to be part of MAGA." Well, that means those people that voted for me in Iowa and New Hampshire and those people who donated to me, really, you're going to go and say they're not in your club? You're supposed to be president representing everyone.

Brian Lehrer: Meg, that's tougher stuff than before New Hampshire. Who do you think Haley is trying to appeal to among South Carolinians with comments like those, and any indication yet whether it's landing?

Meg Kinnard: She is hoping to put up the best number she can against Donald Trump. That's for sure. She's hoping to be appealing to anyone who may be having a moment of, "Well, I just really don't want to go through this with him again." I will tell you, in South Carolina, the support for Donald Trump isn't just among the elected leaders who are backing him. That includes Tim Scott, who Haley appointed to the Senate and who was in the campaign with her running against her for the nomination, as well as Trump until November when he suspended his campaign.

It's not just those people. The support is deep. There are a lot of backers of Donald Trump, who supported him in large numbers, albeit it was 32.5%. It's all it took to win the primary in 2016 with a lot of people in the race, but they supported him then, they've supported him throughout, and they still support him. She is hoping to make her argument to voters who have not seen her on a ballot in the state since 2014 that she's a good choice if they're not super excited about him. I don't know how many of those people there really are.

Let's also remember, there are a lot of people who've moved into South Carolina from other places and brought their politics with them since Haley served as governor. Yes, she was elected twice statewide, but the South Carolina Republicans and Republicans across the country look a little different in the last decade, that has seen Trump win the nomination, become president, serve as president, and now is running again. It's not necessarily the same GOP that it was when she was in office.

Brian Lehrer: That's interesting about new people coming into South Carolina and the party changing. I almost would have thought it would go the other way, but of course, you tell me. It's one of the most conservative states in the nation, and no doubt the Republican nominee, whoever it is, will almost certainly win the state in November. North Carolina to the north, and Georgia, just to the south, have both become swing states because of population change. Is there demographic or generational change that might be changing South Carolina too in the direction of a swing state?

Meg Kinnard: South Carolina is not going to be a swing state anytime soon. You're right about the demographic changes that have occurred in our neighbors to the north and to the west, like in North Carolina and Georgia. That's not happening in South Carolina. A lot of the people who have come into the state are coming from more working-class roots than perhaps some of the other people coming into those other places.

If you look at the biggest areas of growth, one of them is around Myrtle Beach, which a lot of people know because they've gone to it for vacations or what have you. The people who are moving into that area are coming from more working-class situations of their own, and also more conservative places, more bringing their conservative politics into that area.

Again, it's not necessarily what we would have considered to be a "mainstream Republican" a decade ago. These are what I would characterize as closer to Trump supporters. I don't know that they're moving to South Carolina, because it's a very supportive place, but it's further engendering, I think, some of that support in those areas, and that could only bode well for him when he's on a ballot in the state.

Brian Lehrer: 30 seconds left in the segment. What's your quick take on Tim Scott? You just mentioned that Haley had appointed him originally to his Senate seat. He was also running in the primary, which means running against Trump as well as everybody else, but now he's endorsed Trump. Is that that he's really running for 2028, and he wants to keep the base happy, or what do you make of Tim Scott?

Meg Kinnard: He could have his eye on another presidential run. He could have his eye on running for governor himself in South Carolina, a seat that's going to be open in a couple of years. I think that this is not the last we've heard of Tim Scott, for sure, and he could have his eye on other opportunities. If you're supporting Trump from South Carolina, and you want to continue representing South Carolina in some way, that would be a pretty good bet this year.

Brian Lehrer: Meg Kinnard, national politics reporter for the Associated Press, based in South Carolina. So informative, Meg. Thank you very much and thank you for so much time today when I know you're super busy.

Meg Kinnard: Thank you. Happy to join.

 

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